News summary for November 13

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited President of the United States Barack Obama to visit Russia, Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov told Itar-Tass late on Tuesday.

MOSCOW — Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has subjected Western countries to criticism over their “wrong position” on Syria and pledged that Moscow is going to support neither of the parties to the conflict.

MOSCOW — Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday he was satisfied with the current relations between the government and the president and that he was not surprised at the recent resignation of two ministers.

MOSCOW — Russia’s State Duma lower parliament house on Tuesday officially relieved Andrei Vorobyev of his lawmaker’s competences following his appointed acting governor of the Moscow region earlier this month.

MOSCOW — President Putin has signed into law an amended bill on citizenship. The document was adopted by the State Duma on October 26 and approved by the Federation Council on October 31, 2012, the Kremlin press service said on its website.

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin has decided to include in the RF Council for Civil Society Institutions and Human Rights (HRC) another member — human rights activist Alexander Brod. At the meeting of the Council one of its participants complained that human rights activist Alexander Brod was not included in the Council. The RF president said that he had heard about it and decided: “Let’s include him.”

MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin believes it is possible to specify the notion “defamation” in the RF Criminal Code. “In the defamation article it is possible to clarify the wording. This issue has already been much debated,” he said at a meeting of the RF Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights (HRC) answering a question put by journalist Yelena Masyuk.

GORKI — Russia and Slovenia have signed a final investment decision on the construction of the Slovenian section of the South Stream gas pipeline.

The volume of investment in the Slovenian section of the South Stream gas pipeline will exceed 1 billion euro, Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee Alexei Miller told reporters on Tuesday after talks between the prime ministers of Russia and Slovenia.

The Investment decision on the offshore section of the South Stream gas pipeline will be made on November 14. On December 7, the construction will be launched, Alexei Miller said.

MOSCOW — The second GLONASS-K satellite will be launched in late 2012 or early 2013, deputy director general of Russian Space Systems /RKS/ Grigory Stupak told reporters at the opening of the 11th international conference Aviation and Cosmonautics 2012 on Tuesday.

The number of functioning units of the GLONASS satellite navigation system may increase to 30 in the next two or three years, deputy director general of Russian Space Systems /RKS/ Grigory Stupak told reporters at the opening of the 11th international conference Aviation and Cosmonautics 2012 on Tuesday.

MOSCOW — Russia and NATO countries on Tuesday begin the Vigilant Skies 2012 two-day command-staff exercise. Its goal is to test the information exchange system for the prevention of terrorist threats from the air. The exercise is held within the framework of the NATO-Russia Council Cooperative Airspace Initiative (NRC CAI). The area of the exercise: Bodo - Murmansk, Warsaw - Kaliningrad and Ankara - Rostov-on-Don. The exercise is commanded by the directors form NATO and the Russian Federation.

MOSCOW— Russia’s Ministry for Emergency Situations has sent humanitarian aid to residents of New York hit by Hurricane Sandy, a spokesman for the Russian Ministry for Emergency Situations told ltar-Tass on Tuesday.

MINSK— Belarus will chair the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in 2013, CIS Executive Secretary told reporters on Tuesday.

MINSK — The agents of the Belarusian State Security Committee (KGB) caught red-handed an agent of the foreign intelligence service.

KIEV — Ukraine’s united opposition has turned down the idea of “zeroing” the parliamentary election results and opted for “parliamentary and off-parliamentary struggle.”

KIEV — Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada, or parliament, on Tuesday registered a bill on rerun elections in one-seat constituencies. The bill was initiated by Alexander Kozub of the Party of Regions faction, who proposed corresponding amendments to the national law on parliamentary elections.

KHARKOV — The Kiev district court of Kharkov announced recess in review of the criminal case over financial abuse at the Unified Energy Systems of Ukraine /UESU/ corporation, which was led by Ukrainian Opposition leader Yulia Timoshenko in the 1990s. Judge Konstantin Sadovsky said the court would continue the hearing on November 23. He explained the postponement by the absence of Timoshenko and her lawyer at the trial.

ASTANA — The volume of transit of cargoes transported through Kazakhstan, Russia and Belarus has been growing at a quick pace due to the Customs Union, Askar Mamin, President of Kazakhstan Temir Zholy company, which is the national railway company of Kazakhstan, said on Tuesday.

ASTANA— Railwaymen of Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan before the end of the year plan to draft a package of appropriate documents on the setting up of a unified logistics operator on the Customs Union’s space, President of the Russian Railways (RZD) company Vladimir Yakunin said on Tuesday in the format of the International Business Forum “Strategic Partnership 1520 – Central Asia.”

LONDON — The British petroleum corporation British Petroleum (BP) and the consortium AAR, which brings together all private Russian stockholders of the joint venture TNK-BP (Alfa Group, Access Industries and Renova Group), settled all disputable issues over the joint venture, in which the foresaid business entities have a 50% stake each, BP said in a statement here on Tuesday.

KRASNOYARSK— The Sovetsky District Court of Krasnoyarsk on Tuesday granted the petition for parole filed by physicist Valentin Danilov. In 2001, he was arrested by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) on suspicion of divulging state secrets and sentenced in 2004 to 14 years in a tight-security penal colony. Then his term was reduced by one year.

KHABAROVSK — The Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East (Minvostokrazvitiya) has sent to the leadership of Vnesheconombank (VEB) for discussion more than 90 priority projects for the East of Russia the implementation of which is proposed with the use of tools of the OJSC the Far East and the Baikal Region Development Fund, the press service of the office of the Russian presidential plenipotentiary representative in the Far Eastern Federal District told Itar-Tass.

MOSCOW — Closing the webpage of Dmitry Vinogradov who shot and killed his six colleagues on November 7 requires a court ruling, spokesman for the Roskomnadzor Federal Supervision Service for Communications Vladimir Pikov told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.

YEKATERINBURG — The search for the An-2 plane missing in the Urals region since June has been stopped. The relevant instruction was signed by regional Prime Minister Denis Pasler on Tuesday. The document notes that due to the worsening weather conditions and snow cover, the ground and aerial search for the missing aircraft is impossible, because it places the rescuers at risk. The document did not say if the search might resume next spring.

MOSCOW — Germany has extradited to Russia Khabib Umakhanov, wanted by Interpol on suspicion of murder of a Dagestan district official in 2009, the press service of the Interpol Russia bureau told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. The investigators ascertained that in September 2009, Umakhanov, together with two accomplices, murdered the head of the republic's Khasavyurt district in Moscow. The criminals sprayed automatic fire at the official's car and fled. The district official was killed on the spot and his guard was seriously wounded.

MOSCOW — The Investigative Committee /SK/ has finished the probe into the criminal case over the abduction of Ivan Kaspersky, son of a well-known anti-virus software designer. "Nikolai Savelyev, his son Nikolai, Sergei Gromov and Oleg Mayukov are accused of extortion, committed by a group in collusion using violence, with the view of coming in possession of property in especially large amount," SK spokesman Vladimir Markin told Itar-Tass.

MOSCOW — Criminal proceedings have been initiated over a fight on a tram in eastern Moscow, in which three persons were stabbed, the city police press service told Itar-Tass on Tuesday. "The criminal case was opened over malicious infliction of serious harm to health," the press service said. On Monday, five Caucasus natives got on a tram through the rear door near house 19 in Shosse Entuziastov Street at around 08:00, Moscow time. The driver and several passengers rebuked them, saying that they should have entered through the front door and paid the fare.

MOSCOW — The Investigative Committee /SK/ has finished the probe against three suspects in the case over the theft of 3.5 billion roubles in the Moscow region. "The investigation against former deputy regional Finance Minister Vladimir Nosov, former director general of the Moscow Region Trust Company Vladislav Telepnev and NES-Finance company economist Yelena Kuznetsova has been completed," SK spokesman Vladimir Markin told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.

MOSCOW — Eight drivers of a wedding cortege, from which shots were fired on Monday afternoon as it moved in the west of Moscow, face an administrative arrest. The man who opened gunfire might be prosecuted on charges of hooliganism after a decision on opening a criminal case against him is made, a source from Moscow police told Itar-Tass on Tuesday.

ULAN-UDE — The new chief of the Russian Interior Ministry’s (MVD) department for the Trans-Baikal Territory, Roman Deyev, has suspended from duty four policemen of the Mogochinsky police precinct for abuse of power. The press service of the territorial MVD department told Itar-Tass that “according to inspection materials, during 2009-2012 the suspects, being police officers, used violence and torture against Mogocha residents, forcing them to confess of committing crimes.”

MOSCOW — The main military prosecutor's office passed to the investigators new materials on military property sale fraud. "It is a whole property complex comprising 70 buildings and structures whose area totals 36,000 square meters. It sprawls on more than 20 hectares of land in the Odintsovo district. It was a procurements complex for the organizations engaged in maintenance of military equipment and armaments, and it was sold for a mere 320 million roubles," the military prosecutors said.